The past year and a half has been the most transformative of my life. I’ve stopped lying about my past & not only come to accept it, but learned to turn that pain into power, changing the question of “what happened to me?” Into, “What can I do with what happened to me?”
I’m now I’m able to help others heal and move forward from trauma and experiences that have held them back their entire life. I’m in a place of peace and happiness in my life, taking no shit from others and living exactly how I please.
Of course, this road hasn’t been without challenges. I’ve been viciously attacked, both by strangers & people close to me.
Here’s some things I’ve been called in the past year:
Narcissist
Liar
Pedophile sympathizer
Dangerous
Mentally ill
Needs electro therapy
Trying to get attention
Pathetic
Dumb/stupid
Brainwashed
Should be in jail
.... to name a few
I won’t lie and say these things haven’t hurt me. It’s awful to be targeted by strangers, & worse by people I know. But the good thing about healing is learning to accept not only all possible realities of yourself, but using it to your advantage. That's what shadow work is.
Shadow work involves going into the deepest, darkest places of yourself, and not just looking into it, but sitting with it, getting real comfortable with the uncomfort, until it just becomes a part of you.
These days if I’m bothered when people call me things, I know that on some level I must think it’s true. When you go into your shadow, accepting ALL possible realities of yourself, NOTHING anyone says about youwill bother you, because you know it’s not true, and you’ve already accepted that part of yourself anyway.
No one can touch you when you're in touch with your shadow side. Attacks are water off a duck’s back, & teflon to criticism. My new comfort zone is being uncomfortable. If I’m not there, I’m not growing. I’m going to push the envelope, cause a ruckus & evolve . That’s where I need to be and where I’ll stay
As Carl Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but making the darkness conscious.”
#shadowwork #acceptallpossiblerealities #theuncomfortablezone #livingwithpurpose #comeatmebro 😊
Accepting the things I cannot change...about myself
I've learned to accept something about myself recently, which is I cannot make up my mind about anything until the last minute. It's not that I make bad choices, but decision making literally gives me anxiety. I think waaaay too much about the consequences of each choice and construct huge stories far into the future about what could happen with each decision. Because of that it stresses me out and makes me a bit neurotic.
I've been trying to figure out the next steps for my life now for months and I'm just realizing that I'm not super into long term planning, much less making plans and sticking to it. When you give people your word and back out, that's breaking promises to yourself and reinforcing beliefs that you can't reach goals because you never follow through. So unless I'm serious about a plan, I'll either say no or leave it at a "maybe" until the last minute.
I used to think that this was a horrible quality and I'm sure that's true for some people, but I realized that as an air sign, like the air I will always change direction, I will always change course, and I will always change my mind. Now that I'm cool with that, I feel like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Also realizing my decisions are not wrong, they're just last minute ;)
I used to hate when people would ask at a job interview or in general what my five or 10 year plan is. I would panic and think, "that sounds awful, I literally have no idea what I’m doing in the next month, much less in five or 10 years because my plan is going to change 50,000 times before that!"
Now I realize it’s perfectly fine not to have a five or 10 year plan because they never go according to plan anyway.
Your plan is not the Universe's plans. The less attached you are to specific plans or outcomes, the more flexible you'll be and less chaotic you'll feel when all your plans fall through.
Understanding this for me means I can go where I'm meant at the last minute, change my plans whenever I want and not freak out when nothing works out. There's always a better way, I just need to accept, go with the flow, and find it.
Who else feels this way? Let me know in the comments below 👇